Monday, October 3, 2016

Pure Energy . . . and Other Fort Wayne Stories

Just returned from a busy weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana. If I don’t have as much energy as usual, it’s probably because I spent part of my weekend watching a whirling dervish who reminded me so much of my cousin, Donna, when she was that age.

Tanya Fox is the editor of CardMaker Magazine, and on Sunday she did a make and take next door to our booth. During setup on Friday, I got to meet her daughter, Audra. Audra really does remind me of my cousin – Donna was a cheerleader in high school and college back in the 80s. Donna used to wow the crowds at basketball games by doing back flips all the way across the gym floor. At the time, she was the only cheerleader I knew who could do that – these days, I don’t think you can even try out without that talent.

Audra is a ball of energy – she was doing cartwheels and splits and all kinds of cheerleading moves during setup, and while her mom was doing make and takes on Sunday. She also found creative uses for the table skirting that was originally intended to be part of her mom’s booth. And I am quite certain that in a few short years she will also be a high school and college cheerleader.

I came into the building on Friday bearing gifts for the promoters. I have brought Bill’s Donuts for Steve and Michelle for several years – sometimes as a bribe to get in a little early for setup so I can head home to announce a football game on Friday evening. On years like this one when the locals were out of town, I still bring along the goodies.

After all, when the promoter can round up a crowd like this as the show opened on Saturday, it’s at least worth a box of donuts . . .

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This has been a work in progress for a long time. I suspected for a long time that we needed to start a blog where we could post information, pictures and such. But it took Cheryl Darrow from Ten Seconds Studio to finally convince me to take the plunge.

When I started building our website more than 18 years ago, I barely knew how to turn on a computer. I learned a lot and got a lot of good advice along the way, we rebuilt it five years ago, and now I can update it in my sleep. This blog is much the same -- at the outset I had only a vague idea how this page would best serve our customers. It has become a place to post pictures from conventions, tutorials, a quick sale notice, some of my stream of consciousness thinking, and pictures of my dog from time to time. I have also discovered a group of foodies who enjoy my recipes and a group of prayer warriors who helped carry my mom through chemotherapy.

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Someday I'll tell the story of how we entered the world of rubber stamp conventions, mail order, wacky costumes, and more. Again, it wasn't our idea -- two of our customers get all the credit.